Marianna Longo

Project topic: Control of the human kinome and autophagy by the docking of 14-3-3 proteins onto phosphoproteins

My name is Marianna Longo, I’m 25 and I come from Lecce, a City in the south of Italy. I graduated in October 2016, from the University of Pavia, Italy, and hold a Master degree in Molecular Biology and Genetics. During my bachelor studies, in Life Science at the University of Salento, Lecce, I acquired a solid background in general biology, then with my master I deepened my knowledge of molecular biology and genetics. My bachelor laboratory internship, performed at the laboratory of Medical Genetics Giovanni Paolo II Oncological Centre of the Vito Fazzi Hospital has improved my technical skills in basic molecular biology practice.
I started my two year-internship at the Research Centre for Regenerative Medicine of the San Matteo Hospital to satisfy my interest in biomedical, regenerative medicine and developmental biology fields. There I isolated and characterized mouse antral oocytes and stem cells from human cord blood, which were cultured and differentiated. I was also lucky to have a Erasmus traineeship at the Cell and Developmental Biology department of Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Münster where I performed extra experiments for my final thesis: “The double role of Zscan4 in mouse oocytes and preimplantation embryos”.
I was introduced to 14-3-3 proteins during my master internship, through proteomics and immunoistochemical studies, then learned about ‘Autophagy: physiology and related disease’ during the 16th advanced training course, of the project “Progress in Biology and Medicine” at the Ghislieri College of Pavia. These themes captured me, and I am looking forward to my project to investigate the roles of 14-3-3 proteins in regulating autophagy in response to multiple signaling inputs.

Home country: Italy

TASPPI partner: University of Dundee

Supervisor: Carol MacKintosh

Starting date: September 1st, 2017

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This work is supported by the Initial Training Network, funded by the H2020 Marie Curie Actions of the European Commission under Grant Agreement 675179